Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
BOONE
I am not stalking him.
I’m performing a routine environmental observation of a known human variable that happens to be walking through my forest.
That’s my story.
I’ve upgraded it since last year. It sounds more official this way.
Elias moves along the trail below me, boots sinking into the thawing earth. I keep to the higher ground, weaving between massive cedars and firs, always a little upslope, always just off the path where the understory is thick enough to hide eight feet of fur and bad decisions.
I haven’t seen him in months.
Winter is all long-distance traces—ghost-scent on wind from old campsites, half-faded tracks in early snow, the memory of his last day as he trudged away with his pack and that stupid bright orange hat.
But this? This is him. In real time.
He’s humming off-key, loud enough that every jay in a quarter mile is judging him.
It should be annoying. It is annoying. And absolutely, under no circumstances, should the sound send a slow, molten warmth through my chest.
He pauses by a tree I use as a landmark—massive, hollowed at the base like a listening ear—and sets his pack down with a soft grunt. The little clearing is bright with filtered morning light, mist shredding into thin veils as the sun starts taking itself seriously.
I lean my shoulder against the trunk of a nearby fir, half shadowed, and watch.
Elias kneels by the base of the tree and starts digging around in the leaf litter.
His movements are careful in that distracted way he has, attention narrowed down to a three-foot circle of moss and soil.
His curls escape his beanie, haloing his head in chestnut chaos.
He pushes them back absently, leaving a smear of dirt across his forehead.
I have to grit my teeth against the urge to reach out and wipe it away.
Ridiculous.
He mutters to himself as he works, words drifting up to me. “Okay… you were right here… unless the snowpack shifted and… no, there you are, you stubborn little miracle—”
His face lights up when he uncovers a small, half-buried box—one of his soil sensors, still intact, little LED still blinking faintly. He cradles it in both hands like it’s delicate and precious and not a piece of plastic and circuits.
I’ve never seen anyone look at dirt-measuring equipment that way.
No. That’s not true.
Old memories stir, uncoiling like roots deep underground. My grandmother stooping over river stones, fingers tracing the lichen patterns like maps. My uncle polishing a radio antenna he built himself, humming some old song about mountains and storms.
We’re a long-lived species, my kind. We remember more than is useful. We attach meaning to things that haven’t asked for it.
Spend enough centuries alive and you learn the world is stranger than most humans realize.
I’ve met shifters more times than I can count, know there are entire supernatural communities hidden in plain sight, and occasionally exchange emails with a mage who insists spellwork and server maintenance are basically the same skill set.
As for dragons? I’ve heard the stories. Enough of them that I can’t dismiss them entirely.
Rex maintains he once had a brief relationship with one, and he’s many things, but a liar isn’t among them.
Still, every other account seems to contradict the last. Most supernaturals think dragons are little more than folklore.
Others insist they’re real but exceptionally good at staying hidden.
If that’s true, they’re either masters of subtlety or someone has been quietly cleaning up after them for centuries.
I shift my weight against the tree, bark biting through my fur.
Sasquatch don’t usually fixate on humans. Not like this. We’ve watched them for centuries, sure. From distance. From shadows. You can’t not watch an invasive species that’s busy reshaping entire ecosystems and arguing about whether the sky is actually on fire while their houses flood.
But attraction?
No. That’s fairly rare.
We pair with our own more often than not.
Other cryptids sometimes—there was a sasquatch who fell for a selkie once, generations ago.
He lived half his life on the coast, walking the line between sea and forest for her.
It didn’t end well. They rarely do, those cross-world romances.
Not because of species, exactly. Because of time.
Because of territory. Because of humans and their habit of reacting badly to anything that doesn’t fit inside their little boxes.
Some cryptids never get the chance at all.
The Beast of Bladenboro is proof of that.
I’ve never met him personally, but every report I’ve heard over the last few decades paints the same picture—isolated, territorial, and increasingly unpredictable.
Most cryptids give his territory a wide berth.
Even on the Network, nobody seems to know much beyond rumors and secondhand sightings.
I’ve been meaning to look into it properly.
If someone’s struggling that badly, they shouldn’t have to do it alone.
I’ve just never found the time.
I’ve also never been tempted to cross that line by romancing out of my own species.
Not until a thirtysomething human biologist with terrible coffee and the thighs of a minor forest deity wandered into my range and started talking to my trees like they’re old friends.
He stands now, sensor wiped off on his jacket, and scribbles something down in his notebook. His brow furrows in concentration, lips moving silently as he counts or codes or whatever it is humans do when they turn feelings into numbers.
Faint lines bracket his mouth that weren’t there two summers ago when I first saw him.
There’s a new tightness in the way he straightens, a hand pressing briefly to the small of his back, like he’s finally noticing what I’ve known for decades: The body is a tricky, temporary arrangement. It complains more as it goes.
He looks good. Different, but good.
He’s slightly softer around the middle, yet broader in the shoulders somehow, while his hair is longer and wilder, curls tumbling out the back of his hat. There’s a little more gray at his temples—just a thread, but I see it. I see all of it.
I hate that I notice.
I hate more that I like it.
He tucks the sensor into his pack with exaggerated care and moves on, following a faint game trail off the main path. I pad along parallel, feet finding familiar routes without thought.
I’m quieter than the fog. It’s a species trick—weight distributed, muscles choosing silence the way birds choose flight. Humans hear stories about us crashing through forests, breaking limbs, shaking ground. Easier to laugh at what scares them, I suppose.
Truth is, if I don’t want him to hear me, he never will.
My aunt once got so bored she spent an entire summer seeing how many times she could be photographed.
Fourteen blurry photos, three shaky videos, and one hunter who swore he’d looked her directly in the eye.
She loved cryptid hunters—said they were good exercise.
Most of her entertainment came from running circles around them until they started doubting their own maps.
Compared to some of the people she toyed with, Elias isn’t exactly a challenge. The man could probably miss a marching band if he was thinking about soil samples.
He talks as he walks, narrating his own day.
“Okay, Cedar Ridge camera next, if the snow didn’t take it,” he says. “Then the microclimate station—if you’re gone, I swear, I’ll just lie down and let the lichens reclaim me. It’s fine. I’ll be fine. Totally fine.”
He laughs at himself. It’s soft, self-deprecating, and makes his shoulders relax.
I follow the line of his back with my eyes, the way his pack fits snug against it, the way his thighs flex with each uphill push. He stumbles over a root and catches himself with a curse that’s more amused than angry.
“Watch your feet,” I murmur, too quiet for him to hear.
If he heard me, I’d probably fall over from shock.
The higher we climb, the clearer the air becomes—crisp, edged with snowmelt and the faint metallic tang of rock exposed by thaw.
The sky shows through in ragged cuts between branches, pale blue streaked with thin clouds.
The forest floor is a patchwork of old snow, dark soil, and the first green shoots daring to exist.
He reaches the Cedar Ridge overlook around midday. The rock here juts out like a broad stone lip over the valley, and the wind is sharper, tugging at his hat and hair. He sets his pack down and goes straight to the nearest tree, eyes scanning the branches.
“Come on, come on…,” he breathes.
His camera trap is still there, higher up than human reach without a ladder. Higher than most humans can comfortably climb.
He doesn’t know that’s because I put it back after a winter storm shook it loose. Last December, during one of those aggressive snow dumps that make even me hunker down, I found it hanging by one strap, one more good gust from falling and disappearing into a ravine.
I recognized it. His work. His careful placement. His hope for continuity.
I put it back where he’d want it.
He doesn’t question why it’s still straight in spring.
Now, he stands under it with his hands on his hips and a grin pulling at his mouth. “Yes.” He fist pumps. “You beautiful, overpriced, pain-in-my-ass box. You held.”
He shimmies up the tree with more enthusiasm than grace, boots scraping bark, breath puffing in small oaths. At one point he almost loses his footing, and my heart stops in my chest so fast I feel dizzy.
If he falls from that height, the rocks below will crack him open like a dropped egg.
“Hang on,” I whisper, fingers digging into the bark of my own tree.
He doesn’t hear. The wind steals my words and scatters them over the ridge.